Thomas Babington Macaulay Quotes

• Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Rightly, Settle

• And to say that society ought to be governed by the opinion of the wisest and best, though true, is useless. Whose opinion is to decide who are the wisest and best?

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Wisest, Governed, Useless

• American democracy must be a failure because it places the supreme authority in the hands of the poorest and most ignorant part of the society.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Failure

  Tags in Authority, Ignorant, Poorest, Places

• Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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  Tags in Constitution, Anchor

• We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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  Tags in Morality, ridiculous, Public, Know

• We hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilized age.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Age, Genius

  Tags in Proof, Wonderful, Great, Hold, Most

• Turn where we may, within, around, the voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, that you may preserve!

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Reform, Events, Great, Turn, Around

• To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Country, Knowledge

  Tags in Population, Great, School, Leave

• To sum up the whole, we should say that the aim of the Platonic philosophy was to exalt man into a god.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in God

  Tags in Sum, Aim, Whole, Philosophy, Man

• There were gentlemen and there were seamen in the navy of Charles the Second. But the seamen were not gentlemen; and the gentlemen were not seamen.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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  Tags in Gentlemen

• There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces, and that cure is freedom.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

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  Tags in Produces, Evil, Freedom

• The puritan hated bear baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Bear, Pain, Pleasure

• The object of oratory alone in not truth, but persuasion.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Truth

  Tags in Object

• The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Measure, Character, Real, Found

• The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Knowledge

  Tags in Tendency, Good, Make

• The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Estate

• The English Bible – a book which, if everything else in our language should perish, would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Beauty, Power

  Tags in Everything, Book, Language

• The effect of violent dislike between groups has always created an indifference to the welfare and honor of the state.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Always, Effect, State, Honor

• The best portraits are those in which there is a slight mixture of caricature.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Best, Slight

• That is the best government which desires to make the people happy, and knows how to make them happy.

  Thomas Babington Macaulay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Government, Best, Happy, People, Desire

Thomas Babington Macaulay (81)

Birth:	25th October, 1800
Death:	28th December, 1859
Nationality:	British
Profession:	Historian, Poet, Politician

About

Macaulay was the eldest child of Zachary Macaulay, a Scottish Highlander, who became a colonial governor and abolitionist and Selena Mills who was a former pupil of Hannah More. Thomas Macaulay was born in Leicestershire, England, where he was noted as a child prodigy.

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